TL;DR – This was a weird and wonderful delight, where you never know if a character will get a bullet to the head or fart themselves awake.  

Disclosure – I paid for the AppleTV+ service that viewed this series.

Slow Horses Review –

When I dived back into the catalogue of AppleTV+, there was one show that more people had recommended to me than any other. “You have to watch Slow Horses” was the call, and well, I am always one to take a recommendation when it comes as strong as that, and well, I am glad that I did because I am not sure I have ever watched something quite like this.

So, to set the scene, we open in on an airport in England as River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) is on-site leading the hunt for a terrorist. But when a bad call means that information got mixed up and the terrorist got away, River can only watch as the bomb is set off in the middle of peak hour traffic. It was only a training exercise, but it is a stuff up so bad that Cartwright was jettisoned to the worst job in MI5: Slough House. Led by the ever-flatulent Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), there is one word to sum it up: dull. But while Cartwright is looking to find a way out of this purgatory, they may have slipped onto something bigger than anyone that could get them all disappeared. Now, from here, we will be looking at the season as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

This is such an odd duck of a series that I am still trying to find just where I land on it, even though I finished watching it a week ago. I think what sums this up the most is how we are first introduced to Jackson Lamb. He is sitting there sleeping in his office, surrounded by a mound of rubbish, when he wakes himself up with a fart. This is Academy Award-winning Gary Oldman showing just how well he can fart on screen, and I say this because this is a crucial character trait that gets brought up or expelled several times throughout this season. I raise this point because this is juxtaposed with a narrative about the rise of right-wing nationalism. This is such fundamental dissonance, and yet it works.   

It works because the characters commit to the scenario and their diverse roles. Jack Lowden presents River Cartwright as the straight man for all the chaos that happens around him. The professional stuck in the absurdity of trying to be the spy he knows he can be, even if this flies in the face of some of his colleagues. Jackson Lamb is the head of Slough House mainly because no one wants him, but he knows too much to be left to his own devices. Gary Oldman plays a character that shows a general disregard for all his staff, yet when someone external comes to attack, he moves with incredible speed to keep his people safe. Then there are the wildcards like Catherine Standish (Saskia Reeves), who clearly has a deep history with a lot of the players and is very good at their job, but then there is a reason they are stuck at Slough House.

Filling your show with interesting characters is one step, but you need a story to pull it along. It is here where Slow Horses shines. What we get is the growing disaster when right-wing nationalists with links all the way up to the parliament capture the nephew of a Pakistani general and threaten to behead the kid live on the internet. While this is all happening, we have this growing concern that MI5 might have helped organise the event, which makes anyone who knows about it a threat. There are three growing problems: the Slow Horses not knowing if everyone in their department can be trusted, an MI5 who have stuffed up royal and are looking to clean house as the media is out for blood, and the right-wing nationalists just found out there was a spy in their midst.

These growing issues all build upon each other as the season goes on, as each stuff up, or unfortunate fall down the stairs, escalates the coming danger. There is this moment when they walk in and see the ultra-nationalists have executed the MI5 spy, and they have but minutes to make their next move before the MI5 dogs pin it all on them. It is these hard shifts and turns that make you desperate to see what will happen next. All the way to the end, I did not know if that kid was going to survive, and they captured that uncertainty in every moment.     

In the end, do we recommend Slow Horses Season 1? Yes, we would. Now, I would caution that this is a very particular vibe that will not be for everyone. But, I will 100% be diving into Season Two, and that is the best recommendation that I can give.  

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you seen Slow Horses yet ?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day.    

Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Slow Horses
Directed by – James Hawes
Written by – William James Smith, Morwenna Banks, Mark Denton & Jonny Stockwood
Created by – Will Smith
Based On – Slough House by Mick Herron
Production/Distribution Companies – See-Saw Films, Flying Studio Pictures, Sony Pictures Television Studios & AppleTV+
Starring – Gary Oldman, Jack Lowden & Kristin Scott Thomas with Saskia Reeves, Olivia Cooke, Rosalind Eleazar, Christopher Chung, Steven Waddington, Dustin Demri-Burns, Paul Higgins, Sam Hazeldine, Freddie Fox, Sophie Okonedo & Jonathan Pryce and Antonio Aakeel, David Walmsley, Stephen Walters, Brian Vernel, Samuel West, Paul Hilton, Chris Reilly, Joey Ansah & Bally Gill  
Episodes Covered – Failure’s Contagious, Work Drinks, Bad Tradecraft, Visiting Hours, Fiasco & Follies